


Hiding Behind his Sakabatou

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Rurouni Kenshin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-19
Updated: 2003-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Identity. Two people who meet briefly can have such an effect. Who are you, really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiding Behind his Sakabatou

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ciari

 

 

Hiding Behind His Sakabatou 

Part One: Enishi 

She. 

She was my sister. She was my mother. She was my friend. She was my everything. She was all I had, and all I wanted, and all I could ever imagine wanting. 

She was his victim, and for that, he must die. 

When I was young, Onee-chan used to tell me that I could do anything that I wanted to do, as long as I had faith in my ability to do so. I believed her, too. Because I believed everything she said. She was my everything. Why would I doubt the girl who I loved and cherished the most. 

And then her fianc died, and she lost interest in me. But I never stopped caring about her. On the contrary, I did everything I could for her. I talked to her, I hugged her, I loved her. I GAVE HER MY FUCKING LIFE, and I never heard a single word about it! All I heard was the screen door sliding back into place as she left. As she left me. 

But still, I persisted. I vowed to find her. And I vowed to kill the bastard who had hurt her, the battousai. 

He. 

He killed her. All I ever wanted was her happiness. All she ever wanted was his happiness. What they got was misery. All three of us, trapped in this horrifying triangle of misery. I wanted to end the cycle. I wanted to make him feel my suffering, knowing full well he already did. I knew he suffered as I did, I knew he loved her as I did. But I couldn't accept that. I knew that if I continued to feel anger towards him, I would never forget him. I knew if I hated him enough, I would see him again. 

I hated myself for not hating him. 

So I trained. For eleven long, lonely years, I trained. I listened for any news of him. Eventually, I heard where he was staying, and with whom. 

Apparently, he had found a replacement for my sister. I could not allow that to happen, so I went to him. And I took her. I knew he would come. He loved her, as he had loved my older sister. He was not capable of loving halfway. There was no doubt in my mind that he would come looking for her. 

And so he did. 

Her. 

Her eyes sparkled like Tomoe's. Her hair color was similar. Her actions and words were so familiar to me. 

With a sudden horror, I realized that I was forgetting my older sister. With even more horror, I realized that I remembered him perfectly. Every word he had said. Every movement he had made in his sword fight. 

My hate had turned my hair white. 

Need. I needed him. For his presence in my life, even if he completely forgot I existed. For the way he had fought for her. For the way he had killed her. 

And that's why I never hurt Kaoru. Not because she reminded me of Tomoe, but because I knew he would come for her. And I needed him to come, almost as much as she needed him to come. 

They. 

They shared something I could never share with him. As soon as I saw the way she pined for him, saw the determined look in his eyes as he stared me down, hiding behind his sakabatou. And at that moment, I no longer cared if I lived or died. 

After I lost the battle, I scampered off into the woods. I needed to get away. I could not face his face as he reprimanded me, even though I knew he wouldn't. But I hadn't been sitting against a tree for more than twenty minutes before he found me, stepping into the clearing, the sunlight making patterns on his flaming red hair. 

"Battousai..." I breathed, trying to decide between offering him a seat and threatening him. 

"Himura Kenshin," he corrected, smiling a soft smile that caught me totally off-guard. 

I turned my head away, not wanting to watch him any more. "What the hell are you doing here, KENSHIN?" I scoffed mockingly. 

He sits next to me, putting a friendly hand on my shoulder. "Checking to see if you are okay, Enishi." My name never sounded more amazing than it did coming from him. 

Just like when she used to say it. 

He already knows I am bitter. He knows. I will never forgive him. I will never forget him. 

We. 

And suddenly I am in his arms, sobbing on his shoulder like a ten-year-old. I am ten years old again. She is alive again. Everything is as it once was. 

What is this man to me? 

Everything. He is everything I have lived for in the past eleven years. Everything I hated, the reason I can't stand myself, the reason I live and die by the sword. I know he belongs to Kaoru, yet I know I can have him for now. And he knows that he is mine for a short while. 

"Why can I forgive you?" I sob. 

I can hear him smile sadly. "Because your heart may be filled with anger, but it also wants to be happy. You have to find your place, Enishi." 

My place is with him. But I cannot tell him that. Nor can I ever take that place. 

Part Two: Kenshin 

As a samurai, I have learned to uphold several stereotypes and roles. I am expected to be the prince who saves the damsel in distress. My death should be an honorable one, my life should be heroic. And I'm supposed to make it look easy. 

When I was young, I killed. I remember vividly the smell of the blood and the feeling of my sword through the cloth I wiped it clean with. Those days, I made it look simple to do all that I did. My comrades admired me, even idolized me. I was the best. The best at killing and making it appear to not scar my soul as it did my body. 

The revolution ended. Suddenly I was no one. I had no one. I lost my wife, Tomoe, the one who I loved. Even in love I made it easy. Farming, talking, cooking, drinking tea, sleeping sitting up, not sleeping at all. All was simple to the outside world. But not to Tomoe. She saw through me. 

There was one other who saw through me right away, one who saw Kenshin and not the Battousai. I guess it ran in the family. 

When she died, I wanted to look for him, maybe give him a memory or two. Help him create more. But the times called, so I returned to my life of simplicity, sinning and putting off the pain until my later years as a Rurouni. 

Then came Kaoru. She was young and impressionable. She didn't know any better. She had never spilled human blood. That's why I didn't believe we could be together, because she could never understand my game, the charade I lived day-by-day. 

But several late-night talks initiated bravely by her showed me the truth of Kaoru. She was breaking a mould, too. She did not want to be the "respectable woman" that they wanted her to be. She was a fighter. I could love her, I realized. 

But something held me back, something that I struggled with until her kidnapping, when I went to the island primarily to retrieve her, but also just as importantly to meet him again. The one who saw me as the man who killed his sister, and like many others, fed off his hatred for me. How many people like him existed? And did it matter? 

He was young and impressionable. He didn't know any better. Neither did I. I did what had to be done. I defeated him, to uphold my image. I've upheld my image for so long, it's become habit. Just a few years more and it will become one of those lies that you tell yourself so often that they become true. Soon, I will live like a hypocrite, not just BE a hypocrite. I needed something to stop that. 

So after he left, I chased him. 

I told him to call me Kenshin. And he did. 

Later, I wished I had told him to call me Shinta. I didn't want to be that man to him any more. He was important in my development. While he sobbed in my arms, I felt him reduce to the young boy, and I felt my identity as Kenshin drain away. I allowed myself to pull him tighter. 

I had not been this close to anyone since I left Kaoru that day. 

Carefully, I lifted his chin and touched my lips to his, just once. We both needed it to complete our identities. 

When I left later that day, I knew I would never see him again. And I knew that it was time to re-introduce myself to my life. 

 


End file.
